My internship had a pretty late start as I was hired when the semester had already started. My role as an intern also completely revolves around the grant cycle so my workload has increased significantly within the past week as Park Pride gets closer to reviewing each park for this year’s grant cycle. Part of my duty as an intern has been to write up snapshots for the site visits of each park as well as tidying up various documents as needed. The snapshots are a single document that looks at what each park is asking funding for and the history of the park. I’ve also found it important to include the community impact of the funded projects in the snapshot to provide a clearer narrative as to why these people are asking for funding.
I have been really amazed at how much work goes into making sure parks are getting the right amount of funding. Park Pride prioritizes giving funding to communities that are what they call “historically disinvested communities” so that every community receives funding, regardless of their ability or inability to “match.” To “match” funding, communities are asked to pay back Park Pride, kinda like a loan, that is determined in the park’s application. I have learned a lot about how difficult it is to determine a park’s eligibility for non-matching due to many factors that the park often doesn’t have control over, such as an influx in gentrification in historically low-income communities.
I meet with my supervisors at Park Pride very regularly and we discuss how the most recent site visits went and any additional information that is noteworthy regarding those visits. I have also been able to meet with some people working in the other sectors of Park Pride and they have invited to lots of events to visit the parks and see Park Pride’s work in action!
I should hopefully be wrapping up the snapshots soon and will have to present them at a conference for the Grant committee and board to review the parks within the coming weeks. I’m excited about all the work I’ve done so far and what else I’ll be able to learn while interning at Park Pride.
